Chevrolet last year started selling a 2023 Corvette Z06 based on the eighth generation of America’s sports car—and now the Bowtie brand has launched a GT3-spec version to be offered as a customer race car.
The new Corvette Z06 GT3.R race car made its debut over the weekend during the 2023 24 Hours of Daytona and will be offered as a turnkey solution for customer teams. It will be ready in time for the 2024 motorsport season, Chevy has confirmed, and will be eligible for multiple competitions (both sprint and endurance) where it will compete against other race cars based on, for example, the Aston Martin Vantage and Porsche 911.
We can expect it to compete in the GTD Pro and GTD classes in future seasons of the IMSA SportsCar Championship, as well as the comparable GTE Pro and GTE Am classes of the FIA World Endurance Championship.
It’s not the first time we’ve seen a Corvette-based GT3 customer race car. Germany’s Callaway Competition, the European distributor for U.S.-based Corvette tuner Callaway, has offered GT3 customer race cars spanning multiple generations of the Corvette. This time Chevy itself was responsible for the car’s development, in partnership with Pratt Miller Engineering.
2023 Chevrolet Corvette Z06
According to Chevy, the Z06 GT3.R and road-going Z06 share a chassis and aerodynamic features, and the LT6 5.5-liter V-8 is essentially the same unit for both cars, sharing around 70% of their parts. The Z06 GT3.R has also benefited from lessons learned from the more hardcore Corvette C8.R, the race car it replaces.
Key modifications over the road car include a steel roll cage, plus wheels, tires, springs, damperes, and brakes all designed for racing. The aerodynamic package has also been modified to optimize downforce as well as cooling.
2024 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R race car
Chevy is currently registering signs of interest for the Z06 GT3.R. Deliveries are confirmed to start in the third quarter of 2023 and pricing will be announced closer to that date.
As for the C8.R, it will complete full seasons of both the SportsCar and World Endurance Championships before bowing out at the end of 2023. Chevy, via its Corvette Racing squad, is fielding a single C8.R in each competition, and two cars in the all-important Le Mans round of the World Endurance Championship.
